AU - The Joker: Reborn
by Un-Happy-Ending'B
Summary: Like any other night in Gotham City for Batman, but what will happen when he returns home to find his beloved butler, Alfred Pennyworth dead? How will he cope with it? & who's to blame? Rated T - My first fan fiction. Open to advise...


**Rated T for it's dark theme and violence. My first fan fiction, open for advise. **

**How will Bruce Wayne take the death of his beloved butler, Alfred Pennyworth?**

**Chapter 1**

It was like any other night in Gotham for Batman, cold, dark and justice to be served. He had been tracking the Joker for an hour or so on this particular night, and Batman was ready to catch the sinister clown in the middle of his plans. Like any other fight, Batman would always talk to Alfred, to prepare him, to comfort him... It was about 2:30AM and Batman was on his way over to the docks, where Joker had a big shipment of weapons and tricks.

"Alfred, I'm 2 minutes away from the docks, Joker has a large shipment coming in, I'm have to stop him."

Batman said in his dark voice, emotionless as usual

"Of course Mr Wayne" he heard through his ear piece "I'd be careful of any hostages first though sir" Alfred added.

"I've already hacked the system to see who should be working there at this time" Batman replied quickly

"There should be only three" he added.

"Very well sir, I shall prepare some food for your return" Alfred went off the line and Batman was alone, and ready.

Shortly after, Batman had arrived at the docks and perched himself high up on the crane, where there was no light behind him, but plenty of light where the psychotic criminal was in the perfect view, as well as three tied up hostages, one of which was bleeding out rapidly. Suddenly, the loud screech of the Joker's laugh had risen from below. Batman began to listen in on what he was saying

"You got blood on my new shoes you moron" The Joker roared at the bleeding out hostage

"Better clean it up old boy" He laughed and pushed him to the floor, the hostage was unable to move nor speak, he was gagged with an old oily rag and duct taped to a chair. He was squirming around on the floor like a worm, but with great difficulty.

"Oh I almost forgot" Joker leant down beside him and picked his head up by his blood soaked hair

"Left ya' gag on" he laughed hard and ripped it off, the man was groaning in pain, he had taken one hell

of a beating from the Joker, the man could barley see out of his black, pusy eyes and blood pouring out of his bent nose like a tap. His lips were split and mouth was red, he must have been choking on his own blood - drowning even. The joker put his hand into the man's mouth and gently pulled out his tongue, which had shards of the man's teeth on. The Joker got closer to his ear and whispered

"Now, if I'm not able to see my beautiful smile in my shoes, then you're gonna make a great piece of art on the floor!" He laughed hysterically, punching the mans' head onto his blood covered shoes

"Well lick them clean boy!" The Joker screamed in his ear then laughed sinisterly! Batman had seen enough.

Batman jumped from the crane, swooping in towards Joker, when suddenly, Joker noticed him getting closer and closer and he pulled out a revolver and pointed it to the side of him, where Batman was coming in from, Batman quickly rolled out of the way as Joker shot a bullet, only catching Batman's cape, resulting in him landing face first onto the ground, but that didn't slow down the servant of justice... Batman lept up onto his feet with small cut by his mouth, Joker laughed

"Well, well, well! If it isn't my old pal the bat" Joker's smile quickly turned into a sour look towards Batman.

"Where's the shipment Joker" Batman got straight to the point

"It's mean't to be on a ship, hence the name ship - ment, get it?" Joker laughed

"Why am I the only one that laughs at my jokes" He added, almost seeming disappointed, Batman saw his chance to disarm Joker, he quickly launched his hand to his grapple hook and fired it at the revolver that was loosely in Jokers hand, it sped out his hand before he could even react to it. Batman caught it, took the bullets that were left out and loaded it with some kind of gel in each chamber that turned rock hard as soon as it was exposed to the chilled air. Jokers smile had become a very angry kind of smile, and a dirty look thrown towards Batman, but then, his smile perked up a bit... He looked at the bloody man on the floor, wriggling around, then looked at Batman. Joker began to vibrate and a deep quiet laugh became louder and louder, shortly hysterical in a sick tone, Batman knew Joker had thought of something, so evil and horrific, but what? Batman wasn't sure at this point. Jokers leg began to lift quite quickly, Batman launched himself towards them, a sharp sound came out of Jokers foot; spikes had whipped out and Joker was about to put his foot down on the hostages head, but luckily Batman had landed over the man, grabbed him and rolled out of the way. Joker had caught Batman though, the spikes had caught his black cape and Joker let out a mighty screech! Batman knew this was trouble, he was only happy that the hostage had rolled away to the other tied up two, he flipped out a batarang, which had cut just enough or one of the tied up men to break free and help the other two.

"Get out of here!" Batman yelled at them. The bloody man could barley walk, one of his feet were twisted facing the opposite way. Batman couldn't help them any more, he had his own challenge of breaking free from his cape.

He turned around, only to see that Joker was towering above him, grinning, ear to ear. Joker looked down at him and waved

"Hello batsy" he giggled, Batman pulled and pulled, his cape ripped, leaving a bit of cloth wrapped around the bottom of The Jokers shoe, from the distance, flashing blue lights were caving in and the sound of sirens became stronger and stronger, the men that had been held hostage had called the police. They arrived quickly, surrounding the Joker at gun point.

"Looks like you got me this time" he chuckled

"But this time, is precious for you bats" he added in a deep sinister voice, as if there was something else Batman was missing, but what? A hand patted Batman on the shoulder

"Good work Batman" It was Commissioner Gordon

"There's a large shipment of weapons coming in here." Batman butted in with, he didn't like the thanks, he just wanted the job done.

"My men are on it, could you explain what happened here?" he asked Batman and he explained the events. After Batman explained he asked

"I assume the man taken hostage is hospital?" Commissioner Gordon nodded

"Yes, he's taken a lot of damage tonight, he's on life support" Batman said nothing, just stood in silence for a moment, showing no emotion.

" The shipment will be here soon" he broke the silence with and pointed at where it should be coming in, Commissioner Gordon turned to look

"Bat-" before he could finish his sentence, as he turned around, Batman was gone, disappeared into the shadows... He was heading back to the batmobile when all of a sudden, a large explosion from the distance caught his attention, scorched playing cards fluttering everywhere, Batman ran towards the incident to find out that Joker had managed to blow the batmobile up! Along side a crashed police car next to it

"Jokes on you bats!" the Joker yelled as his goons come along in a helicopter and lowed a ladder, the Joker got away once again. At this point it was 3:10AM, Batman was to far from the batcave to just grapple his way there, he had to contact Alfred to send the bat bike

"Alfred, I need you to send the bat bike"

"Right away sir, It'll be about 10 minutes before it gets there, there's a few things on it that needs to be altered sir"

"No problem." he replied bluntly. It began to rain as he was waiting, the ice like rain touched his emotionless face, irritating the cut he had, landing on his face earlier, he ignored it. After a wait in the rain, the bat bike arrived, at this point it was 3:20AM and would take him five minutes to get back.

"Alfred, I'm on my way back, I'm sending you tonight's report, it might help us on the Jokers where abouts" Batman said egarly, but the other side was quiet, no reply from Alfred?...

"Alfred, are you there?" it was still quiet

"Hmm, must be something wrong with the connection on the other side, I'll contact Grayson" he said to himself. He began to dial him

"Urgh, what?" Grayson answered half asleep

"Grayson, I'm sending you info on tonight, I need you to-"

"Couldn't Alfred or Tim take this? It's my night off you said"

"I know, but Tim is in Star City helping Green Arrow on some things and I can't get any connection with Alfred"

"Alfred not responding? Hm, that doesn't seem right" Grayson seemed almost stunned and it woke him up a bit

"I know.." Batman paused

"I'm sending it all through to you now" he quickly picked the conversation back up

"Okay, I'm on it" Grayson was off to do his work.

It was now 3::25AM and Batman had just got into the batcave, where Alfred is suppose to be waiting

"Afred?" Bruce's voice, echoed throughout the cave, but no reply. Bruce was begining to get concerned... Bruce put away the bat suit and went back up to the house, to search for Alfred. Bruce began to think 'he said he was preparing food', he got up to the library, books lying everywhere, the table on the floor, almost like a trail of mess leading out of the room. Bruce began to panic a little, but kept his cool, and followed where the mess lead him, paintings on the wall not straight, end tables blocking the walk way, leading him into the kitchen only to find Alfred lead on the floor with a scolded face with a pan and potatoes scattered around his dead corpse...

"Alfred!" Bruce screamed in fear, rushing towards him with a lump in his throat, tears beginning to well up in his blood shot eyes. Bruce collapsed beside Alfred, crying, cradling his scolded corpse on the floor for hours and hours, Bruce was distraught to say the least. He needed to know how, when and who, and especially why? He began to analyse the cold body, it was no ones fault, it was nature taking it's course. Alfred had died of old age. That was it. Nothing more and nothing less.

"I need to know when!" Bruce cried, analysing the body some more

"No.." his eyes began to grow wider and his heart sunk, slowly. Painfully. It's as almost as if he could feel it travelling down him. He picked himself up off the floor sluggishly, like a rag doll, he couldn't hold himself up.

"He died... 3:20AM... If I had arrived sooner... I would have been able to say my goodbyes... If the batmobile hadn't-" Bruce just burst out into angry tears. Bruce lead in the kitchen for the rest of the early hours of the morning, sobbing endlessly, grieving, waiting for someone or something to change in his time of need. Bruce heard someone approaching, he didn't flinch. He just lead there, like a living corpse. It was Grayson, he stood in the door way

"Bruce?" He spoke softly, Bruce didn't say a thing. Grayson slowly stepped towards the grieving man, with blood shot eyes, and a wet face. He looked around anxiously, wondering what had happened

"B-Bruce... What happened?" Bruce's head rolled to Alfred's direction and closed his eyes tight with pain. Grayson looked over at where he was looking to see the body of Bruce's butler...

"Bruce I-" before he could finish Bruce let out a blood curdling scream of pain, got up off the side stumbling, knocking a bowl onto the floor, and slowly tumbled his way over to Alfred. Grayson could only stand there and watch in shock, he had never seen this kind of behaviour from Bruce before, he never thought he'd react like this when someone close passes away. Bruce tripped and landed over Alfred, luckily he stopped himself before crushing him, Bruce's tears dropped off his face and onto Alfred's wet clothes from where the scolding water had gotten on him. Grayson could hear the anger and pain in Bruce's breathing. Bruce put his arms under the cold corpse and struggled to get up. Grayson stepped quickly to help him up

"Here, let me-"

"Back off." Bruce barked, making Grayson step back, he nearly stepped on the broken bowl, but stopped himself. Bruce stood up straight, with a rag doll like Alfred in his arms and slowly descended out of the room. Grayson didn't follow, he hadn't a clue where Bruce was going, but he waited for his return...


End file.
